NEW YORK – The CIA today released still-highly redacted documents in which
Guantánamo Bay prisoners describe abuse and torture they suffered in CIA
custody. The documents were released as part of an American Civil Liberties
Union Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking uncensored transcripts
from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) that determine if prisoners held
by the Defense Department at Guantánamo qualify as "enemy combatants." In
previously released versions of the documents, the CIA had removed virtually all
references to the abuse of prisoners in their custody; the documents released
today are still heavily blacked out but include some new information.

"The documents released today provide further evidence of brutal torture and
abuse in the CIA's interrogation program and demonstrate beyond doubt that this
information has been suppressed solely to avoid embarrassment and growing
demands for accountability," said Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU
National Security Project and lead attorney on the FOIA lawsuit. "There is no
legitimate basis for the Obama administration's continued refusal to disclose
allegations of detainee abuse, and we will return to court to seek the full
release of these documents."

The newly unredacted information includes statements from the CSRTs of former
CIA detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Abd Al Rahim Hussein Mohammed
Al Nashiri, Abu Zubaydah and Majid Khan, including descriptions of torture and
coercion. These statements include:

• Abu Zubaydah: "After months of suffering and torture, physically and
mentally, they did not care about my injuries that they inflicted to my eye, to
my stomach, to my bladder, and my left thigh and my reproductive organs. They
didn't care that I almost died from these injuries. Doctors told me that I
nearly died four times." "They say 'this in your diary.' They say 'see you want
to make operation against America.' I say no, the idea is different. They say
no, torturing, torturing. I say 'okay, I do. I was decide to make operation.'"

• Al Nashiri: "[And, they used to] drown me in water."

• Muhammad: "This is what I understand he [CIA interrogator] told me:
you are not American and you are not on American soil. So you cannot ask
about the Constitution."

• Khan: "In the end, any classified information you have is
through…agencies who physically and mentally tortured me."

"The information released today sheds some new light on the CIA's torture
program, but there are still unanswered questions," said Jameel Jaffer, Director
of the ACLU National Security Project. "The Obama administration should make
good on its commitment to transparency, stop suppressing information about
torture and abuse and hold accountable the officials who put unlawful policies
in place."

Attorneys in this case are Wizner and Jaffer of the ACLU National Security
Project, Judy Rabinovitz and Amrit Singh of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project,
and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.